Listen up, India. The truth’s about to drop, and I don’t sugarcoat — because when the streets bleed devotion and end in disaster, someone’s got to call out the real gods of chaos: political apathy and crowd management incompetence wrapped in red tape and ritual.
This week, in Goa — the postcard coastal darling of India, beloved by beach-bums and spiritual seekers alike — devotion turned into death. Six lives lost. Dozens injured. And all of it happened during what was supposed to be a holy moment: a pilgrimage to the revered Shree Mangesh temple in Ponda town. But instead of a divine blessing, what the people got was a brutal reminder that in India, when politics sleeps, the people die under the weight of its negligence.
It was a textbook crowd crush. And believe me, I’ve read this book before. Tens of thousands of barefoot devotees packed into medieval-sized lanes that couldn’t handle a modern wedding procession, let alone a human tidal wave of festival-goers. You don’t need a disaster management PhD from Harvard to know what happens next — suffocation, trampling, panic. Chaos with a capital ‘C’.
Now here come the usual suspects playing their roles to perfection. The police pin the blame on “unusually large crowds.” The bureaucrats scramble, toss around phrases like “unfortunate incident” or “investigation underway” like confetti at a PR funeral. And the politicians? Oh, they’ll light a few candles, maybe fly in for a quick photo op, and then back to business as usual — which, in this case, means doing absolutely nothing.
Let me be clear: this wasn’t divine will. It was political negligence. It was the absence of foresight, planning, and infrastructure. It was the blind worship of ritual over reason. Don’t tell me Goa couldn’t predict that tens of thousands would descend on the state’s most venerated Hindu temple during this festival. Don’t tell me the state doesn’t have satellite imagery, GIS mapping, advance coordination, or — wait for it — common sense.
See, in India, we’ve mastered the art of worshipping gods. But we’ve yet to learn how to protect the mortals who worship them.
Let’s ask some real questions, shall we?
Where was the crowd control protocol? Where were the exit plans? The barricades? The emergency medical teams? Are we seriously running 21st-century pilgrimages with 19th-century logistics? Or is every spiritual celebration one bad decision away from becoming a national tragedy?
And while we’re doling out accountability, how about a shoutout to India’s political class — that ever-growing circus of lip-service lords who show up for temple inaugurations in tailor-made kurtas but go ghost when it’s time to invest in actual safety?
Newsflash, gentlemen: winning votes with divine posturing doesn’t absolve you from mortal responsibilities.
But here’s what really burns my saffron, white, and green heart — this will happen again. And again. Because while we hold candlelight vigils today, we forget by election season. Because in the Great Indian Drama, memory is short, and outrage has a three-day shelf life.
Tell me, do we really live in a democracy if the dead are greeted with slogans but nothing changes for the living?
The game’s on, and I play to win — but only if the rules are rewritten. We need mandatory crowd management blueprints for every large religious event. We need accountability that bites, not just barks. And we need leaders who do more than just pay tribute — they must build safe pathways for devotion.
To the families of those who died: you deserved better. To those still injured, still aching in hospital rooms: you were failed. And to the system that let this happen — the time for penance is over. It’s time to pay the tab for your dereliction with real reform.
India doesn’t just pray at temples. It prays for survival at them. That, right there, should be headline enough.
Until our gods walk with logistics and our rituals are tempered with reason — I’ll keep the volume up.
If you can’t handle the heat, step out of the arena.
– Mr. 47
